Grief Cycle
by SigmaTheta
Summary: Grief is an outdated concept in their world. You stay in one place long enough to dig a grave, and you're likely to wind up lying in it yourself. Priya/Topher. Prompt: secret. Written based on Epitaph Two promo pictures before the episode aired.


It eventually happens that Echo and Paul come back one day and Anthony doesn't.

(They hadn't even been together anymore, not really after all the fights, but oh god does it hurt.)

Grief is an outdated concept in their world. You stay in one place long enough to dig a grave, and you're likely to wind up lying in it yourself.

Priya does what anyone would be expected to do. She pushes it down. She moves on. She shoulders some of the responsibility he left behind.

(She tells her son that his father is dead and does her damnedest not to cry along with him.)

* * *

The problem is now she's trying to be twice the mother and twice the soldier to compensate for the missing piece but still has the same amount of _Priya_ to work with. Going on as she used to doesn't seem like enough anymore, so she stretches herself until she nearly vanishes.

When she's absolutely certain the child is asleep and warm and safe, that the bars on the windows won't give while she's gone and the door is locked behind her, she gets up and wanders the entirety of the small house. She goes from room to room over and over again, checking every cot and mattress and makeshift bed to ensure what's left of their little group is still there.

(She hasn't slept a night through since Echo broke the news to her. The mother and soldier go on where Priya can't cope.)

* * *

A few nights into her ritual she spots an empty cot and nearly panics before she remembers it's Topher's, and Topher is just as prone to wandering as she is.

When she makes her way to the little kitchen, Priya finds him there, staring out the window, and she stands next to him. There's a fire burning out in the distance. There's always a fire burning.

She says, "You ought to be asleep."

And he wraps his arms around himself and mumbles, "You too, you first."

"It won't be safe here for much longer. We're gonna have to move, and you should rest while you can." The fires are closer every night.

Topher shakes his head and looks at her wide-eyed. "Nothing's safe now. We're liars."

And for some reason that gets to her, really guts her, and she sways on her feet and puts a hand on the counter to keep steady.

Topher tilts his head, reaches out his hand to her face and brushes away the tears slipping down her cheek with a curious sweep of his thumb. When he goes to pull away again, she clings to his hand and cries, sobs muffled against his palm.

"Shhh," he whispers. "Secret. Don't tell anyone."

* * *

Somehow, as the sun just begins to rise and filter natural light into the dingy little house, somehow she's pushing him gently back into one of the kitchen chairs while the tears still stream from her eyes. Somehow she ends up forcing another of their secrets on him, making him bear witness to the depth of her grief.

She presses her lips to his jaw and trails down his neck and lets her hands roam across his chest and slip between their bodies, while he just curls his arms around her waist as though afraid she'll fall and plays with the matted ends of her hair. But soon she's kissing him in earnest just to quiet the little sounds he's begun making, to keep this between them and avoid waking the house.

When his hands move, finally, and slide under her shirt, it's only just, and he traces his fingers along her Birthmark, there so long she's nearly forgotten it. It was a sloppy job, and the ink has faded so it's mostly illegible scar tissue. She has a feeling the motion is intentional, reminding her of the reasons she had those words embedded in her skin in the first place, but she knows it's far more likely that Topher doesn't even remember why she is scarred down there, that the exploration is curiosity and nothing more.

Still, when she comes, with a gasp and then biting her lip for silence, she finds herself thinking, _I am Priya Tsetsang_, and her mind clears a little.

* * *

In a few hours, Zone comes back from his watch and tells them the Butchers have gotten too close. They pack up their supplies and leave the empty house behind them.


End file.
